x11 app launcher?

[jardows]

Here's my .xinitrc file:

xrdb -load $HOME/.Xresources
bgs -z /usr/local/share/backgrounds/freebsd-newlogo-foundation.png &
exec twm

Obviously, substitute location and file name of the background image to your own. I use xrdp to access my VM's, so I can't really comment on how it works for resizing in VirtualBox, but I haven't noticed any issues during use.

 

[johnjohn]

jardows Thank you for taking time out of your day to help. I have installed bgs and tested it with twm. I cannot get the image to fill the screen. For some reason, bgs and feh keep tiling my image or stretching it or scaling it. So far only hsetroot has worked, but in virtualbox the image shows using hsetroot until the resize takes place. I have to run the hsetroot in a terminal after x is loaded.

However, you mentioned .Xresources file, which i do not have at this time. I suppose it will be better if i understand x window system before using it. LOL. I found this info: https://www.x.org/archive/X11R6.8.1/doc/X.7.html

I have since discovered xloadimg and it works! amazing! I will attach a screen capture of the bg in x with twm. I made the image 2x larger to see if feh fills the screen to no avail. xloadimage displays the full image (2x larger than my screen resolution), so i had to implement the -zoom 50 option to scale it down. But more importantly, it works. Or as Bugs Bunny would say: it werks!

Thank you for leading me down this pathway. Also, rofi and dmenu also solve my problems. I am in business

 

[Maturin]

I am growing quite fond of sh and command driven computing lately.

...told you so
You were open minded, gave it a shot, learned, and learned to love it.
(And did it faster than me )
Welcome to the world of unixstyle computering. Welcome to the power

i know, i am not being clear in my description. The reason why i cannot quite describe what i desire to have as a "desktop" is because it does not exist.

There are 3 options:

A) Look what others have (you will find a lot of examples and config files for WM if you search for it), and if you have use for it.

B) Create things yourself, by analyzing your working style (watch yourself from a higher abstraction level), think of a tool how this could a help, and do it yourself.
But I dare say almost all useful things are in one way or the other already part of on or the other DE.
The issue I have with DEs is not they don't provide useful things, but they provide things are useless or even annoying to me I neither want, nor need, but cannot be removed/switched off.

C) Maybe you don't need it at all. (But simply don't know yet )

My idea is to have a blank desktop with an app finder, keyboard switcher, a clock, a calendar, a terminal launcher, a browser launcher and a file manager launcher.

Besides I don't know what you mean with a 'keyboard switcher', almost everything is provided by every DE/WM in basic config, or at least quickly done.
E.g. you'll find a lot of clocks in /usr/ports/x11-clocks
I use good old xclock. Worx. No fiddle-faddle. Runs on every X-server, can not only be started with -strftime (actually I run two clocks: one for the date, one for the time) but with a selected font, size, fore- and background color (see xlock's man page.)
For terminal starts I almost never use the icon anymore, but have several keybindings for different terminal starts, such as "start me a windowless full screen terminal on my main monitor" or "gimme 3 terminals, two splitted 60% 40% on main and one full screen on the second left one, starting each in directory /home/production/..."
I run xterm. I tried several others, but always got back to good, old xterm. Others bring lots of ...things, I don't use while I'm in the shell. But of course that's personal taste.

File managers are kind of a special topic of their own, since I don't have none installed anymore.
The more I got into shell usage the more I disarmed my GUI.
(The last ones I used were: catseye, sunflower (seems not to exist anymore), and filerunner, looks old and needs a bit to get used to its default usage, but it's the most powerful filemanager I knew, and very configurable [but not as powerful and configurable as the shell. No filemanager is. (scripts (side is not maintained anymore, and there are many others, but still useful))

But, however, as some one who just started to get the hang of shell usage, you might think of if it's really that useful to bring much effort into configuring your perfect GUI by the start.
You already started to figure out yourself:

I only enter xorg whenever i need to do things that i cannot do in the login shell

Think of the GUI (WM) primarily more as kind of a beautiful way to provide terminals for the shell usage.
Using the shell on your DE/WM instead of the login shell comes with several benefits:
You can have several terminals on the same screen at the same time, individually adapt size for a certain situation, have more choices with fonts, and sizes, easier to scroll,...and many other things.

Pick a configurable WM, start with some very basic things (you already defined all what one really needs - almost all of the rest is fiddle-faddle), and add only what you actually need, when you really need it.
As hruodr already said between the lines:
Your WM/DE grows and changes over time, becomes more individually tailored. So I wouldn't spend too much time into configuring the perfect one from the start.
After all: Configuring the machine is not the main task to be done.

What the thread was originally started for brings every WM/DE in its vanilla version already:

a small program which will allow me to launch a few select apps with icons.

That was the main menu (left mouse button on desktop background in fvwm):

(just as an example; I quickly picked one from the internet; can look better (I simply don't know how to do a screenshot with the menu open.here we go.))
Any WM/DE is (shall be) capable to configure this menu completely to your own whishes.
Example from my ~/.fvwm/config (other WM work similar):

...
+ "&Firefox%$[infostore.icons]/Firefox_16.png%" Exec exec firefox
...

You need to grab a picture from the internet (there are free icon databases) such as icon-Icons.com
And voilá, there it is, your icon you click on to start an app.

I love this concept: type a few letters and click on the program that you want.

Well, not 'clicking at', but if your hands already are on the keyboard why not just hit 'return'?
That's shell usage again: type a few letters and hit 'autocompletion' (tab) to get a list of all executables available on your machine matching those letters.
You can start every app from the shell (under unix[like] that's the common way; GUI is extra.)

 

[hruodr]

I use good old xclock. Worx. No fiddle-faddle. Runs on every X-server, can not only be started with -strftime (actually I run two clocks: one for the date, one for the time) but with a selected font, size, fore- and background color (see xlock's man page.)

I have an executable file wtime with lines like:

#!/bin/sh
#TZ = path from /usr/share/zoneinfo/

echo "Berlin `env TZ=Europe/Berlin date`"
echo "Douglas `env TZ=Europe/Isle_of_Man date`"
# more ....
echo "Unix `date +%s`"
echo "UTC `env TZ=UTC date`"

(Unfortunately this forum does not give verbatim the spacing in above quote)

This is my world clock, and gives the date. You do not need to have a window with the date.
I cal xclock from a twm menu item like:

"xclock" f.exec "exec env TZ=Europe/Berlin xclock -d -strftime \"%R %Z\" &"

I think the OP is wasting his time. He must begin to do what you say and forget big plans and learning plans.

 

[Maturin]

I will take a closer look at your clock, still mine is not quite perfect, yet, looks like this:

Is not pretty centered since May is a short name, December looks better
I know it can be done with one clock, but then I had not two, but one line, and I want date and time in separate lines. Could be done more elegant for sure. This is an 'artifact' from my earlier FreeBSD days. But it wasn't simply that important to me, to finetune it again. I don't want to spend too much time to get a perfect looking clock, still it does the job, which brings me to

I think the OP is wasting his time. He must begin to do what you say and forget big plans and learning plans.

That's what I said, too - but I wouldn't put it that hard.
When I'm not mistaken, he's relatively new not only to FreeBSD, but also to dive actually deeper into open source unix[like] computering, coming from full Windows. (see thread FreeBSD or Linux from Windows )
There was some (quick) progress from: (April)

I like gui environments.

and:

I don't hate terminal it is simply a slower way of computing. Hello? typing commands all day is not my cup of tea.

to: (May)

I only enter xorg whenever i need to do things that i cannot do in the login shell

I find that extraordinary exemplary!

Since he's coming from full Windows, and now experiencing choice, individualism, and freedom... let him browse, explore, experiment - start to feel the power, start to love it.

Windows teaches you its concept:"eat this!"
With open source unix[like] you have to put it exactly vice versa:
Know what you want, then search the suitable, and configure it yourself - with coming from Windows not knowing what you want, not knowing what there is.
The ocean feels infinite when you lived in a bucket before.
And you can get lost.
That's why I said:
Customizing is not the name of the game.

But the OP does not seem to me getting lost - just fresh in love

 

[jardows]

jardows Thank you for taking time out of your day to help. I have installed bgs and tested it with twm. I cannot get the image to fill the screen. For some reason, bgs and feh keep tiling my image or stretching it or scaling it. So far only hsetroot has worked, but in virtualbox the image shows using hsetroot until the resize takes place. I have to run the hsetroot in a terminal after x is loaded.

However, you mentioned .Xresources file, which i do not have at this time. I suppose it will be better if i understand x window system before using it. LOL. I found this info: https://www.x.org/archive/X11R6.8.1/doc/X.7.html

I have since discovered xloadimg and it works! amazing! I will attach a screen capture of the bg in x with twm. I made the image 2x larger to see if feh fills the screen to no avail. xloadimage displays the full image (2x larger than my screen resolution), so i had to implement the -zoom 50 option to scale it down. But more importantly, it works. Or as Bugs Bunny would say: it werks!

Thank you for leading me down this pathway. Also, rofi and dmenu also solve my problems. I am in business

I just looked into xloadimage. It looks very nice. I will play around with it a bit, especially since bgs doesn't have a maintainer.

 

[hruodr]

I will take a closer look at your clock, still mine is not quite perfect, yet, looks like this

I wanted a small clock with the relevant information i need all time.
(1) I get the date and day of week with date command, it is a waste of space to put it in xclock.
(2) But I do put the time zone in xclock, to avoid any confusion. My system clock is UTC.

 

[johnjohn]

...told you so
You were open minded, gave it a shot, learned, and learned to love it.
(And did it faster than me )
Welcome to the world of unixstyle computering. Welcome to the power

Maturin Hello and Thank You for the wonderful information. I have copied the info for later analysis. I will play with Fvwm. I like your menu examples I sometimes make typing errors - including my doas password - whenever i get tired but i really do enjoy the UNIX world. I somehow always liked it but never used it. I think that i mentioned Mandrake Linux in another thread. I remember when i had Windows 98SE and a recently purchased XP upgrade disc. I was trying to teach myself html and css. I was always reading about Linux this and UNIX that but i didn't know anything about either system. I didn't know how to get a copy of them, much less install and use them. I had dial-up internet at the time (AOL). Computing was new to me. I only knew how to turn the computer on. Everything was new to me. I didn't know what a browser was supposed to do. I remember reading about Arial font and how it is Helvetica on a Linux and Chicago on a Mac. I thought "i want to see these fonts". I want to try a Linux and UNIX system.

Lo and behold, i found Mandrake in a store for 60USD. I bought it and i played with it everyday. I remember vi and pico and xemacs. I thought that it was great but it was all new to me. I didn't know enough of Linux to make it useful to me and at the time, info was hard to find. Time passed by and i never used it again. I never had a UNIX system. Sometime around 2013? i downloaded FreeBSD 9 but i never tried it. Iwas too busy (marriage and a new born son). I am growing sick and tired of Windows. Little things irritate me so much these days. For example, when i have a long line of text in a Notepad file and i try to select a few parts of the text, Windows jumps and selects the entire line and i have to start over. I get so mad. The bloatware, the espionage, the control over my system = i'm moving on.

I was looking at my external hard drive and i found that iso of FreeBSD 9. I decided to check for new versions and i found 14.2 and i found my way here. Now i am finally using The Beast and i love it. I use FreeBSD daily and i am trying to learn as much as i can and as quickly as possible.

I must confess: most of this is new to me. Even xclock is new to me. I have no idea how to use alot of tools/utilities but i try to read and learn fast. I want to be more productive on the system but sometimes i get tired and i need a break.

Information like your recent posts is very helpful and i appreciate every word. And, i thank you for taking time out of your day to help a newbie. I do not ignore anyone's input - i simply absorb it. Like a spong. I guess that i am Spongejohn square pants

Make no mistake, i love this FreeBSD system and DEs are seeming quite annoying to me lately. I agree with what you say about WMs/DEs. I like the freedom very much. FreeBSD is my favorite OS.

 

[johnjohn]

I think the OP is wasting his time. He must begin to do what you say and forget big plans and learning plans.

FreeBSD is new to me. Honestly, before i came here i had no idea what a tty is. LOL. I had to look it up. I remember seeing the word Amnesiac and i thought "amnesia? me? what? why?" i researched this term + FreeBSD and learned that one sees the word whenever one has not set the hostname. So, my point is that i am new to FreeBSD but that noone reserves the right to judge my will and tenacity, especially whenever i use FreeBSD most of the day and every day of the week. I have alot to learn...

speaking of clocks, i also started playing with clocks, specifically the xclock. I didn't know that it can be controlled with options commands. I read about xclock and made a clock that looks like my Windows 10 clock (minus the newline character; apprently, strftime doesn't accept the new line character.) I will attach a screen capture of my xclock. However, i am reading how to use c/cpp to make a clock using time.h

 

[johnjohn]

I just looked into xloadimage. It looks very nice. I will play around with it a bit, especially since bgs doesn't have a maintainer.

i didn't know about xsetbg. I just read about xloadimage and i tried it but it didn't work. Then i started thinking that this is the software that is to handle the image loading from some other command. I found a website that mentioned xsetbg and also xview and a lightbulb appeared (figuratively, of course). I tried that as the possible command for xloadimage and it works. I didn't know that x windowing system had this built in command. I also see that they have a display manager that can be started at boot time. I really must read more about x.

Anyway, i hope that you can make use of it as i have done so. Meantime, i will grab the source code to bgs since noone is maintaining it.

 

[hruodr]

FreeBSD is new to me.

The *BSD are the most near to the original UNIX.
Unfortunately I do not know a similar Linux distro.
The basic CLI commands are typical UNIX, X11 also.

But all *BSD have small differences, with other UNIX like systems.
You decided to use FreeBSD, but keep in mind that there is
something in common and differences on these systems,
and that one must keep in mind what is common and what may be different.

If you use for example twm, you can use it the same way in all *BSD and Linux distros.
If you program in tcl/tk or sqlite3, only little changes will be needed.
With C / C++ similar, but more care is necessary.

If I am in front of a Windows computer, I do not know what to do.
If I am in front of a UNIX like system, even if unknown to me, I can do something.

 

[johnjohn]

I also want to take a moment to mention programming. Many years ago i tried to learn cpp but failed. Books often gloss over complex subjects and leave newbies scratching their heads. I decided "maybe i'm too stupid to learn programming - playing into their hands, of course.) Then a year or two later, i tried QBasic. Let me start with something simple, rather BASIC. LOL. I remembered reading that most programs are a loop in memory until a command to cease running is issued. Also at this time, i started trying to learn math. I only ever had basic math in school. Algebra, Trigonometry, Geometry and Calculus are too complex. I remember that i got a book about teaching yourself Trigonometry, so i started learning Trig. A test was mentioned at the end of the first chapter: make a BASIC program to convert degrees to radians. I used my knowledge of QBasic and the looping in memory concept and made my first computer program. Later, i made a keyboard interactive hockey game menu and also a lottery number picker. I have all three programs recorded via Ink2go on youtube. Have a look if you are interested:

https://youtu.be/4yE4s0Qmjd0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixGvBbR2ttw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wojH27jpOtc

Since then i have mastered php and i am moving on to c/cpp

 

[Maturin]

Starting with C++ is quite a start. Can be frustrating. In my eyes C++ is not a beginners language. In my eyes you first need to learn programming before you start languages like C++, Rust, or D ... if you want to go that far anyway.

My recommendation was:
If I were you I also would put BASIC on hold for a while.
Depends on what level you already are - but if you already did some C++ and BASIC you're by far not a total noob anymore, at least know a bit more than the fundamentals. Also depends on what you want to accomplish with programming, of course. But if you don't need just a credit for a school's class, learning to program makes only sense if you program programs you use.

With unix[like] you're on a system which comes by its very nature as a software development platform. Maybe not the sophisticated perfect one by default basic vanilla, but already very powerful. Every unix[like] always comes already at least with some half-way useful texteditor, and a non-toy C-compiler at professional level (clang on FreeBSD, gcc on Linux [while you can install both on both]) for free. Compared with Windows... - okay, let's stay reasonable again.
The basic idea of Unix philosophy is to provide the user with a toolset of small tools, which can and shall be combined to realize higher tasks. This combination not only means pipes, but also scripting, which means preferably bash-scripts (I gave you one link above in my former post.)
Included in this "toolset" is also the tool to create tools yourself if needed, which means programming.

So my recommendation was to focus first a bit on the most used languages on unix[like] systems:
- bash-scripting (seems a bit for the start, but one can get used to it; this will warp up your shell experience another notch! )
- C, because most of the system is written in it; even if you decide not become good at it, nor to program in C later, it helps a lot to understand a lot of things deeper. Unix is C. C is Unix.
- Python or Perl possibly are more comfortable/better/easier ways to produce programs for your daily use than C; also much stuff is written at least in Python.
- others here may bring other suggestions. Also reconsider their recommendations.
- you may use BASIC, of course, if it does the job for you (we're not talking that BASIC we had on our homecomputers in the 1980s ) but as I said, the languages I listed here are the most important ones on unix[like], and very use- and powerful.

If you want to become a programmer on a professional level, my recommendation was also to get at least a taste of Assembler. It makes no sense to become good at it as long as you don't want to really program in it which means really lowest level of programming, but it gives you a lot of understanding how the machine works in its "bare metal", so it will be useful for becoming a better programmer anyway. But it's not needed for your personal little helpers you may write to increase your personal production efficiency, you're most adviced to do those in a higher language, of course.

 

[johnjohn]

Maturin I've installed Fvwm3 and it is a very nice wm, indeed. I like it. I also installed tcl/tk, filerunner and cat's eye. I started making screen captures of programs because alot of programs only have a text description and sometimes i cannot find a screen capture of apps in any Google searches. I thought about making a thread in the forums to help other users decide if they should install an app based upon a screen capture or not. But tht would take up too much server space, so i will find an image host and link to the screen captures instead.

I guess that you do not thoroughly read my posts. I have been programming a long time now (26 years). I have already compiled my own c and cpp programs in FreeBSD using cc (clang). QBasic is the language that i used to write my first program over 20 years ago. I have since mastered html-html5, css-css3, javascript, php and a bit of sql. I have c/cpp experience but i haven't used these languages very much until i noticed how similar that they are to php (since php is derived from cpp).

i am going to play with Fvwm3 a bit. I also installed some new apps that were in your list: imhex, xpdf and lmss.

 

[hruodr]

If you want to become a programmer on a professional level, my recommendation was also to get at least a taste of Assembler.

Or at least learn C and get an idea of what assembler is.

I do think that C is a good language to start with. K&R book.

A beginner will sure be able to write in C not only a "Hello Wort", but programs that make something useful, for example calculations.

He will get a feeling of algorithmic programming, of how to build everything from the most elementary level without assembler.

I think it is an error to begin with a functional or object oriented language, a scripting language perhaps only for children.

But how long will a beginner need to write an X11 "app launcher" in C? l recommended him tcl / tk for it.

But he will learn by trying as he wants and failing as he sure does not want.

 

[hruodr]

I have since mastered html-html5, css-css3, javascript, php and a bit of sql. I have c/cpp experience but i haven't used these languages very much until i noticed how similar that they are to php (since php is derived from cpp).

No, definitively php is not similar to C, only the syntax perhaps.

As long as you think they are similar, you will not learn C really.

Also tcl has a similar syntax, but it is definitively also not a similar language.

And even if the syntax of perl, tcl, python are not similar, one could say that they are similar, they are mainly algorithmic scripting languages.

For many reasons I prefer tcl, that many people do not like, to perl and python, among other reasons:
minimal,
clear syntax rules,
extensible with C,
it combines very good with tk and sqlite3,
in some sense reminds me LISP,
it is in some sense a programming culture.

 

[Maturin]

But how long will a beginner need to write an X11 "app launcher" in C? l recommended him tcl / tk for it.

You're absolutely right. My post was ment more general than in the context of this thread's topic.

When I started to learn C at university thirty years ago I had no clue of any Assembler at all. It was commonly agreed it was a waste of time, so to avoid that useless language.
After I learned Assembler many things about C suddenly became very clear to me I didn't understand before.
I also learned C can be named as the very first higher level of abstraction of Assembler.
But without any knowledge of Assembler our teachers at university despaired why it was so hard for us to grasp things that are so obvious. Of course they were teached Assembler, hated it, but knew fundamental basics we didn't even saw a use but useless ballast only in knowing such things.

in your list: imhex, xpdf and lmss

That's just my main menu, so no reference.
imhex is very nice, if you need to do things in hex often; hexyl (shell) delivers quicker, when I just want to take a quick peek into a file, before I started a tool with a GUI.
xpdf is standard; I also have zathura installed; does a better rendering, and comes with vi-like control.
lmms is a sequencer/music tool - don't know if you have use for that

for screencapture I use two tools:
xwd - for getting pictures
ffmpeq - for movies

 

[johnjohn]

I am just playing around with the system and researching certain topics to relax. I need a break. However, i decided to investigate the 'keyboard switcher' concept that we have discussed in this thread. I found a command that does the same thing:

setxkbdmap -layout de
setxkbdmap -layout us

no need to run the ibus-daemon and keyboard sytem tray app. sweet I just need to find a method to launch these commands: a menu entry, a shell script, whatever.

Then i was snooping around the system. I have installed alot of packages just to see what they do and maybe find useful software. I check alot of software. I recently installed Kate, Konsole and Konqueror. I guess that all three programs are KDE apps. I also noticed a user data management console that collects usage data from KDE software. I didn't know that Linux is behaving alot like Windows. I don't remember seeing this message when installing the apps. I don't agree with collecting - even anonymous - usage data. Especially, without my knowledge. I recommend that privacy concerned individuals stay away from KDE.

I am beginning to love the idea of running xorg with a window manager. I see more why alot of FreeBSD users stick to the bare minimum system. I am going to run xinit with xterm and start all over again. I will look at rofi and dmenu and be happy.

I am going to keep software to a small list and jail everything else. FreeBSD is beginning to look like the light at the end of the dark tunnel...

 

[T-Daemon]

i decided to investigate the 'keyboard switcher' concept that we have discussed in this thread. I found a command that does the same thing:

setxkbdmap -layout de
setxkbdmap -layout us

I just need to find a method to launch these commands: a menu entry, a shell script, whatever.

This can be done simpler:

/usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/keyboard.conf

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier    "All Keyboards"
    MatchIsKeyboard    "on"
    Option        "XkbLayout" "de, us"
    Option        "XkbOptions" "grp:ctrls_toggle"
EndSection

This toggles "de" and "us" keyboard layout pressing left and right Ctrl keys. There are more toggle key combinations, see xkeyboard-config(7) "Switching to another layout" section.

To indicate which layout is toggled, there are different keyboard layout indicator for panels. I use x11/sbxkb (on tint2/Openbox). It displays the keyboard layout as a country flag (DE and USA in this case).

It has also mouse support, clicking the country flag changes layout.

EDIT: In VirtualBox you might not want to choose the right Ctrl key to toggle. That's normally the "Host" key.

 

[johnjohn]

This can be done simpler:

/usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/keyboard.conf

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier    "All Keyboards"
    MatchIsKeyboard    "on"
    Option        "XkbLayout" "de, us"
    Option        "XkbOptions" "grp:ctrls_toggle"
EndSection

Hi T-Daemon Thank you for this info. I remember seeing this method in the Handbook (? i think it was the Handbook). I hate assigning key sequences because the keyboard is used often in Nix systems. I might end up assigning keys that cause a problem, so i shy away from key combos. Also, i do not know much about key mapping. I would rather use the windows key or the menu key for something like this.

I apologize for the delay in replying. I decided to start tinkering with C programming. I picked a challenge for myself: make a clock like xclock (to display but not accept arguments). I made my clock and it is working. I hate naming stuff but i called it cell mate, LOL a word play from the expression 'doing time'. Now i want to see how to display the time and the date on separate lines. C is a bit complicated but i will keep tinkering with it.

Thank you for the tip. I will tinker with both methods and see what works best for me.

Side note: I installed FreeBSD in VirtualBox on my other laptop and it only cost 6 minutes to be looking at the login shell! Damn that iz fast. I started installing offline packages and it works, sort of. I installed Openbox but i got an error that openbox autostart requires pyXdg. I thought that

doas pkf fetch -o /my/path -d -y openbox-bla-bla.pkg

fetches all dependencies. Offline installation is not so good on FreeBSD. Maybe it will get better in the future but it is clear to me that not all dependencies are included in the fetching process.